This invention relates to a method of adjusting ski boots to the anatomy of an individual skier in order that the skier can achieve ideal performance from the boot.
Modern ski boots have a relatively flexible inner blader and a relatively rigid outer shell, and the outer shell has a foot portion which supports the skier's foot and a cuff portion which supports the skier's shin. The foot portion has a sole adapted to engage the ski and support surfaces designed to engage safety bindings. Some of the boots have the foot and cuff made from a single piece, but most boots have the foot and cuff made from different pieces connected by some means designed to control the relative position or movement of the two pieces.
Thus, when the skier's foot is supported firmly in the boot and the boot is supported on the ski, it is desirable to control the forwrd lean and canting of the skier's leg. Forward lean is measured in a plane which is longitudinal of the ski perpendicular to the ski's running surface, and control of forward lean is desirable to keep the skier's weight balanced and forward over the skis. Canting is measured in a plane which is transverse of the ski, and control of canting is important because changes in the canting angle determine whether the inside or outside edge of the ski predominates when the skier is running straight on a flat slope.
This invention relates to a method of adjusting the ski boot to the anatomy of the skier in order that canting can be controlled exactly so that the skier can have a perfectly balanced ski with neither inner or outer edge predominating over the other when the skier is running straight on a flat slope. The method can also be used to adjust the ski to provide a precise predetermined cant fitted to the skier's anatomy where the skier desires to have predominant inner edges, but a ski racer will generally perform better with neutral inner and outer edges, because a predominant edge adds drag.
Canting of ski boots has been controlled in the past by a variety of methods with varying degrees of inaccuracy. Thus, canting has been controlled by shimming, or shaving wedges from, ski boots until a plumb hanging from the skier's kneecap hangs over his big toe. Some ski boots are provided with a canting adjustment between the foot and cuff to permit the skier to adjust the canting angle to whatever angle feels best. Sometimes canting has been done by recording the location of a plumb under the skier's knee while the skier stands in ski boots from which the bladders have been removed, and then shaving wedges from the boots to obtain the same plumb locations when the skier stands in the boots with the bladders in place; where this method has been used, the boots have first been altered to align the cuff perpendicular to the foot portion of the boot removing any initial canting angle which has been built into the boot. These methods achieve varying degrees of accuracy and differing results with different kinds of boots.